For obvious enough economic reasons, we’ve seen so much of the free and advertiser-supported service pass from the Web.
Juno, the free dialup email service merged with NetZero, the ad-banner-supported ISP, and, as United Online, both have been evolving into a discount ISP, under their respective names. At this point, both NetZero and Juno are pretty much the same product.
As of December, Juno’s famous (or infamous… considering the amount of SPAM it gets) free dialup email service will cease to exist, as United Online has announced that “free” account holders will be required to either use web mail or sign up for a paid account. With the online time limited to 10 hours per month, on “free” accounts, that means that unlimited email is gone from Juno.
What I’m wondering is, are there any alternatives, for the person without any money? Anywhere in the USA… it need not have a local access number.
I am aware of a few ISP services that purport to be free, but have less than stellar reputations, such as address.com.
Walden, I use Juno. Other than the odd spam message getting through, I cannot complain about that any longer. They are really improved in that regard. I seeem to get more messages from them that I would consider spam if it were not the type of service they currently are. So, I put up with that rather than give up my $5 a month internet access.
There are other things I don’t like about them interface wise, but they are tolerable for now.
The “free” category isn’t looking good. The ones left are either limited in number of hours, or install spyware in your computer. Try the “cheap” ones.
I was Netzero free since it started, then eventually had to switch to their $10/month plan, and currently i’m using Comcast cable. Fortunately, my employer pays the $40/month because i use the connection for after-hours support.
That’s what I started off on. With the present gas prices (and assuming my truck was actually running) it would probably be no more expensive to get a paid account from one of the discount providers.
I’ve had a NetZero free account for a few years, and that’s what I’m on, right now. We’ve been using the $10 a month plan for the past two years, but certain financial setbacks have necessitated waiting a while before renewing the paid account.
Anyway, I’ve perused various free ISP and free email directories, and it seems that most of them have folded and sent their customers to NetZero.
Having used both AOL and NetZero Platinum, I find NetZero Platinum to be much more reliable.